Violins on Fire

Hello everyone!

Last night was a pretty momentous occasion for Shepherd School of Music because for the first time ever, all of the violin faculty shared the stage performing Vivaldi concerto for 4 violins!  Wow. All four of the faculty here (Mr. Lin, Ms. Winkler, Mr. Kantor, and Mr. Goldsmith) are all a violin legend in her/his own right, and hearing them all performing at once was definitely an experience.

rehearsal..  I mean, look at this.  so much awesomeness on one stage.

after the performance...

With the whole Vivaldi group!

Other pieces also on the program included Maurer's concerto for 4 violins, Golijov's Last Round, and a couple of Piazzolla pieces.  It was one of Shepherd's 'Sharing the Spotlight' concerts where the students and faculty collaborate together, so all of Mr. Lin's students were in the program (minus a few injured) as well as a student cellist and a violist.

I got to play the Golijov's Last Round for 2 quartets and a bass, and when I heard it, the first thing that came to my mind was 'man, it's like Piazzolla on crack...'  If you don't believe me, here, give it a listen.

And as it so often is in the professional world, the rehearsal period for this concert was incredibly short.  As student groups, we get to spend a whole semester on a piece before we perform.  This concert?  we had 3. Yup.  And at one point at the dress rehearsal, everything disintegrated and we had a train wreck. I mean, just listen to the piece, it's incredibly easy to train wreck that movement.  See, when stuff like that happens in student groups, we would rehearse it at least one more time just to make sure that wouldn't happen again. So the 4 students in the group were expecting to do that after the run-through, and the faculty goes 'ok, I think we're good for tonight!'  and just like that, we were done with the dress rehearsal!

Surprisingly, the concert came around, and the faculty were right... no train wrecks at the performance despite the questionable dress rehearsal, just an incredibly exciting performance of the piece.  I suppose they know a thing or two about performing, huh?  ;)  haha 

The whole concert was an incredibly exciting one with a whole lot of fiery playing from everyone.  and as one piano faculty commented, 'a whole lot of e-strings on the stage!'  haha.  I don't think I have ever been a part of a chamber concert with so many violinists in the concert.  and man, all of them were on fire  =)   One of my friends who came to the concert said he was not expecting that kind of a concert on a Wednesday night!  haha   he was struggling to stay awake during the day (hump day you know) and he said when he got to the concert, he was so overwhelmed with intensity that he felt incredibly disoriented at first: I believe the exact words he used to describe how he felt during the first part of the concert were, 'omg, where am I?'  ;)

It was such an exhilarating concert, and I am so thankful that I got to be a part of it!  getting to play Golijov with so many awesome players was awesome. Thank you Mr. Lin for programming such an awesome concert and asking us to be a part of it! 

Most of Mr. Lin's studio + former student + Mr. Tim Pitts that awesome bass-twirling bass faculty of ours  ;)

I hope you all have a wonderful day, and thanks for stopping by!

--Janny

Faculty Concert Take Two

Hello everyone!

On Friday night we witnessed the 2nd ever faculty concert of the Foulger International Festival! It was a concert of Schubert, Strauss, and Schoenberg, and yet again, I feel so incredibly blessed to have the chance to work with such amazing musicians.

It's been so great for me because both weeks, I have been able to see the teacher I have worked with during the week perform in these faculty concerts.  Last week it was Miranda Cuckson, and this week it was Nicholas Kitchen, who performed in two of the pieces (Strauss violin sonata, and Schoenberg Verklarte Nacht (Transfigured Night).  

Mr. Kitchen playing the Struass

I love getting to see my teachers performing because it's a great way to witness the things I am working on in lessons come to life.  This week, I have been working a lot on sound production and fiddling around with playing without a shoulder rest.  At the moment, it's really difficult for me because I have never played without it before, but I'm willing to try it out for awhile.  Perhaps I will decide that's how I want to play, perhaps I won't, but I think it will be beneficial either way since I can hear that the sound really changes when I play without it.  


Mr. Kitchen always plays without the shoulder rest, and oh man. his sound...  it's so captivating.  The first piece he played was the Strauss violin sonata with Mr. Levinson, and I have fallen head over heels in love.  The gorgeous 2nd movement, the exhilarating last movement... I just want to play it all!  It was an incredibly exciting performance, and the audience was more than appreciative.  3 rounds of bows and a standing ovation!

see what I mean?  haha

I also found it fascinating that he plays off of a computer!  I mean, we have been playing off of a computer during our sight reading sessions as mentioned here, but in a performance!?  It's really cool though because he has this foot pedal that scrolls up or down which makes page turning effortless.  He also said that usually when he performs, he puts the score on a projector so that the audience can follow along.  How cool is that??

And then they played the Schoenberg.  All through music history classes, I had never been a fan of Schoenberg.  It sounds just so. weird.  When I think of Schoenberg, the first piece that comes to mind is the Pierrot Lunaire, and I think many will agree with me in saying that the adjective 'beautiful' is the exact opposite of what we think of during most of that piece.  But this piece, Verklarte Nacht?  So. Incredibly. Beautiful.   And they really captured the characters and the emotions of the piece.

What an emotional roller coaster of a night.  It's really amazing what great music can do to one's emotions in such a short amount of time.  I am usually not the most emotional of people, and my friends at the concert and also Abro (because I called her during intermission. My heart was just so full of.. everything after the Strauss, and I had to inform her that was the next sonata we will be working on together haha) can attest to how dazed I was by the end of the concert--I don't take emotional roller coasters very well apparently haha.  

I cannot wait for the next two faculty concerts!  yay!

Mr. Kitchen and I

Thanks for reading!

--Janny